Good Things Come in Threes
by Marie Suzette
Summary: Sakura finds herself the point of an isosceles triangle, and doesn't quite know what to do. Luckily, Naruto and Sasuke do.


When she first catches them, her breath almost escapes her. They are beautiful together, the juxtaposition of Sasuke's dark hair against Naruto's blond, Sasuke's pale skin against Naruto's healthy tan, Sasuke's emotionless facade against Naruto's passion. Their kisses and fumbles are passionate, violent, vicious. Their sex is an extension of their rivalry, not much different than their sparring as they wrestle for control. Sakura cannot look away, as she sees the two once again go somewhere she cannot follow.

She does not dwell on the pang of loneliness she feels as she is left behind once more – metaphorically – and she tears her eyes away just as Naruto's claws rake down Sasuke's back. She slips away noiselessly, quiet and unnoticed.

When she sees them later that afternoon at training, she smiles cheerily and pretends she does not notice when Sasuke's hand lingers a moment longer on Naruto's shoulder and pretends she does not mind when Sasuke and Naruto go at with each other without asking _her_ if she wants to spar.

She takes out her frustrations on the training post, which is not to be seen by the end of the practice. Not that Sasuke or Naruto has noticed, caught up as they are in their battle. Sakura resigns herself to remaining in the background when it comes to them, to remaining unnoticed and forgotten. They have each other; they don't need her.

--

On Sakura's birthday, she has worked double-shifts at the hospital because a long, grueling mission she was not allowed to participate in has finally come to an end. She treats friends and strangers alike, hiding her concern with jokes and lectures, concealing how much chakra she has been using until Tsunade confronts her and commands her to take a break.

She returns home, to the surprise party her civilian family has planned for her, the one they have invited their civilian friends to – nobody she knows, of course. She has long since lost touch with any civilian friends she once had. She smiles and pretends to be normal, pretends she has not just washed blood off her hands, pretends she does not notice she missed a spot of blood on the hem of her skirt that will bother her until she excuses herself to the bathroom and scrubs it off. She cannot deal with this right now, pretending to be happy and well-adjusted and pleased and unsurprised she has survived another year. But she makes her wish, blows out her candles, eats her cake. She pretends to be delighted with her scented candles and bath salts (now a pair of custom-made kunai like Tenten's, that would be really nice – or a scalpel she could infuse with chakra for those truly delicate procedures) and it is almost midnight by the time she gets her apartment to herself again.

She is tired, from working, from pretending, from faking so much happiness. What she really wants is some sake and a drinking buddy but most of her friends are too doped up on painkillers to be of any help there.

Frustrated, she picks up one of the damned candles, hefts its weight, and throws it with all her strength at the open window.

Sasuke catches it, as she expected, almost hiding his grunt of surprise at the strength of the throw. (She frowns; he's still a bit weak from the procedure, then.) She does not ask how he and Naruto got inside her apartment or why they left the hospital even though she gave them _express_ orders to get three days' bedrest. She does not tell them their wounds are too severe for them to be out of bed, does not tell them they'll pull open the stitches and she'll have to do the work all over again, does not threaten to re-stitch them without painkillers if she ends up having to do extra work.

Instead, they bustle her into a chair, and make her a pot of really hot tea, and Naruto gives her a massage while Sasuke gets the shower running for her, and both cheer her up by telling her funny stories and bickering and cleaning up her apartment in the process. They put her to bed, which is not hard, because she has not gotten sleep for 72 hours by now and has half-depleted her chakra reserves (always, always a bad idea, and she'd deserved Tsunade's lecture), and sleep comes quickly. The last thing she remembers is the comforting scent of her teammates, the low murmur of their voices, and Naruto's hand stroking her hair.

--

Naruto and Sasuke never come out and tell her, they just start ruffling each other's hair more often, holding hands, playfully punching each other, slinging arms around each other's shoulders. (Which would be far less ambiguous, actually, if they didn't do the same with her.)

They never say, "We are going out" or "We are in a relationship" or "We're fucking." That would mean defining their relationship, slapping a label on their sexual tension.

She thinks for a long time this is because they are afraid that defining their relationship would be too concrete and too official. She knows each has a traumatic past where both companionship and family have been scarce, so she assumes they avoid labeling this one good thing in their life for fear of jinxing it.

She realizes one day, as she sits between Naruto and Sasuke at the ramen stand, where Sasuke slaps away Naruto's thieving, ramen-sneaking hand, when Naruto grumbles about having to treat everyone and then slaps Sasuke's butt, when Sakura laughs at the expression on Sasuke's face, that the reason Naruto and Sasuke do not define their relationship is because any definition would exclude her. They are not NarutoandSasuke or SasukeandNaruto, but rather NarutoandSasuke and Sakura. Because they are Team Seven, and that makes her part of the team, and even if she is not having sex with either one of them or part of what they have, what they have is not independent of her.

She belongs; she is not forgotten; she is needed.


End file.
